PHILADELPHIA — The A.J. Brown thing is simpler than the Trey Hendrickson thing. But both of them boil down to a some pretty basic observations.

— The Philadelphia Eagles can’t possibly think they can win a Super Bowl this season with an offense that does not include Brown (or some other wide receiver who can impact the game the way Brown has since arriving in Philadelphia). Thus, the only scenario in which it would make sense to trade Brown would be one that lands them a return so lucrative it would make up for not winning a Super Bowl.

— The Eagles can’t possibly think it sensible to trade Cooper DeJean, or Cam Jurgens, or Landon Dickerson, or Jalen Hurts for a 30-year-old free-agent-to-be who is making $29 million. Thus, they shouldn’t think it sensible to trade a draft pick that could turn into some future player who, like the aforementioned second-round selections, wouldn’t make sense to trade.

That should be the starting point for any analysis of the Eagles’ options at the NFL trade deadline on Nov. 4. The two potential moves that are generating the most buzz here locally are moves whose odds of actually occurring are, almost self-evidentially, closer to zero than to a coin flip.

This is mostly going to be a column about Hendrickson, the All-Pro defensive end who has been throwing himself at the mercy of the parole board for a couple of years now but continues to serve out his sentence in cruel, unusual Cincinnati. Hendrickson’s inability to work out a long-term contract with the Bengals has landed him on the radar screen of local armchair general managers for most of the last year. The speculation has taken on a more urgent tone here lately. To give you a sense of the situation on the edge of the Eagles defense this season, somebody just asked Vic Fangio if Brandon Graham could be an option. It was a serious question, and entirely warranted.

Hendrickson would certainly be a more viable option than Graham, who retired after last year’s Super Bowl (and who will remain so, at least to Fangio’s knowledge). While he rarely gets mentioned among the God tier of edge rushers — Micah Parsons, T.J. Watt, Maxx Crosby, Nick Bosa, etc. — Hendrickson has put up some historic numbers over the last couple of seasons. With 17 1/2 sacks in both 2023 and 2024, he is one of four players in NFL history to reach that threshold in back-to-back campaigns (Reggie White, Mark Gastineau, J.J. Watt). His numbers are down a bit this season — four sacks, three tackles for losses in six games. But then, he plays on one of the most putrid defenses in the NFL.

Hendrickson would fill a need, and would do so handsomely. The Eagles rank in the bottom quarter of the league in sacks (nine) and pressure percentage (17.5%) and have been uncharacteristically vulnerable against the run, where opponents have been attacking them at the edges en route to a 4.7 yard-per-carry average. After back-to-back losses to the Broncos and Giants, the Eagles had just 2 1/2 sacks from edge rushers this season, and they lost 1 1/2 of them Monday when Za’Darius Smith announced his retirement. (Note: I’m not counting Zack Baun as an edge rusher.)

Those clamoring for a Hendrickson trade are well justified in emphasizing the Eagles’ circumstances. The lack of an edge rush certainly rises to the level of potential Super Bowl deal-breaker, especially when coupled with a secondary that is still trying to integrate a couple of newcomers in veteran cornerback Adoree’ Jackson and rookie safety Drew Mukuba.

The problem is the cost. It would be an easy thing to roll your eyes at if the Eagles didn’t have a litany of concrete examples of what they’d potentially be giving up in a trade for Hendrickson. My assumption is that the Bengals would have to land at least one second-round pick in order to justify trading Hendrickson, who might otherwise help land them a third-round compensatory pick were he to sign elsewhere after the season. It just so happens that the Eagles are the team they are in large part because of how thoroughly they’ve crushed their second-round draft board in recent years. DeJean is only the most recent example of the massive payoff a team can reap by nailing a second-round pick. Jurgens was drafted in the second round in 2022. The year before that, Dickerson. Granted, all three of these players went higher than where the Eagles will presumably be drafting next season. But even if the second-round pick is closer to a third-round pick, guess where the Eagles drafted Milton Williams in 2021?

There simply aren’t many scenarios where it makes sense for a team like the Eagles to trade away four years of well-below-market salary and potentially starter-level production in exchange for a player who is currently getting paid and wants to get paid more even at an age when players at his position tend to fall off in a hurry.

Can you spin a scenario where they use Brown as a trade chip to land Hendrickson? I guess. But however you feel about Brown’s media availabilities, we’ve seen how this Eagles offense looks when he isn’t on the field. Robbing Peter to pay Paul isn’t the answer.

Rather, the answer is that the Eagles are at a stage of roster-building where they are going to have some holes, and they are going to need to rely on the guys they’ve drafted to fill them. That means Nolan Smith when he returns from injury, presumably after the bye. It could mean Jihaad Campbell lining up more on the edge. Come to think of it, both of those guys were pretty close to second-round picks, too. You wouldn’t want to trade them, either.

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